


a line around your throat & a hole in your heart

by warsfeil



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Collars, Emotions, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24413326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: It’s the glint of the silver buckle that catches Alvin’s attention initially, and from there his eyes are swept to the side, along the line of high-quality leather and the skin of Jude’s throat.“Where did you getthat?” Alvin says, and his voice is alittlemore incredulous than he initially means for it to be, but it’s nothing he can’t play off with an easy smile.
Relationships: Alvin/Jude Mathis, Alvin/Jude Mathis/Milla Maxwell, Alvin/Milla Maxwell, Jude Mathis/Milla Maxwell
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	a line around your throat & a hole in your heart

It’s the glint of the silver buckle that catches Alvin’s attention initially, and from there his eyes are swept to the side, along the line of high-quality leather and the skin of Jude’s throat.

“Where did you get _that_?” Alvin says, and his voice is a _little_ more incredulous than he initially means for it to be, but it’s nothing he can’t play off with an easy smile.

“Oh,” Jude says, like he practically forgot he was in the middle of the market wearing a collar. “Milla gave it to me.”

“Milla gave it to you,” Alvin repeats, less incredulously.

“Yeah,” Jude says, as though Alvin is a small child taking a particularly long time to grasp a simple concept. It isn’t exactly condescending -- it’s just _amused_ , with a little curiosity, and Alvin’s pride would feel more ruffled if he wasn’t certain it was a tone of voice Jude perfected during the long years of a childhood with Leia.

“Huh,” Alvin responds, which isn’t exactly a personal best, but he’s not quite sure where the easiest way out of this conversation lies. 

“Is that weird?” Jude asks, like he’s never even considered the notion that wearing what literally amounts to God’s collar around your neck could be weird. Like it’s just some normal necklace with absolutely no unusual undertones or outright overtones. 

“It’s a little weird,” Alvin says, and Jude looks up at him like this is entirely a new concept to him, headline news that he’s never read before in a language he isn’t quite fluent in.

“Then,” comes a voice from behind Alvin that makes his stomach drop somewhere to his knees, “does that mean I shouldn’t have gotten you one, too?”

By the time Alvin turns around, he’s schooled his expression into a carefully calculated look of mild exasperation and fond resignation. Conveniently, that’s an approximation of how he actually feels, too, which makes the entire thing easier.

“Aw,” Alvin says, rubbing the back of his head and letting his gaze slide to the hair at Milla’s temple instead of into her eyes. “You shouldn’t have.”

“I can always return it,” Milla offers, graciously and _entirely genuine_ , and Alvin isn’t really sure how he feels about playing the role of the straight man when it comes to things like this. The collar she pulls out of her bag matches Jude’s in an ambiguous sort of way that could have been intentional, but might have just been the fact that they were mass-produced. 

“Don’t do that,” Jude says, before Alvin can interject to say that yeah, maybe Milla should return it to whatever vendor managed to sell it to her in the first place.

“No?” Milla asks, and Alvin’s about sixty percent sure that she is actively fucking with him, now, but he doesn’t have any proof, no trace of a smile on her lips and nothing but bemusement on her face.

“Hey, if God tells you to wear something, then you can’t say no, right?” Alvin says, scrabbling vaguely at the situation in a desperate attempt to keep himself from free-falling down this cliff.

“I’m not telling you to wear anything,” Milla says, spreading her hand out in front of her and shrugging a shoulder up. “It’s a present. I suppose a more correct term would be that I’m _asking_ you to wear it.”

That’s even worse, actually, but Alvin manages to catch himself before he says that one outloud. He glances at Jude, but Jude isn’t helping at all, just watching Alvin and Milla with a smile on his face like they’re all getting along and discussing dinner plans instead of fetish gear.

“You know what these really are, right?” Alvin says, pitching caution to the wind. 

“Yes,” Milla says, and Alvin is absolutely certain that she’s playing games when she lets the silence drag out just long enough that he considers trying to fill it before the awkwardness kills them all. “It’s a symbol of affection and ownership, isn’t it? Since you’re my humans, I thought it was an ideal way to show my feelings.”

Sometimes, Alvin tracks back in his head, tries to figure out exactly when his life wound up the way it did. Was it the first time he slept with Jude; the first time he slept with Milla; the first time the three of them slept _together_? Was it all the way back when he first “saved” Jude from getting arrested at the Fennmont docks? Was it back when the cruise ship crashed? What, specifically, led to the Lord of Spirits casually offering to collar Alvin?

Is this a loyalty joke? Alvin feels like there’s a loyalty joke in here somewhere, but he’s not going to be the one to make it.

“Okay, okay,” Alvin says, because this entire conversation is giving him emotional hives and his only option to get out of it is to either agree or fake a heart attack. “Give it here, I’ll put it on and match with everyone’s favorite scholar.”

Jude rolls his eyes, but Milla smiles.

“No,” she says, cheerfully. “I’m supposed to put it on you. It doesn’t mean anything if you put it on yourself.”

Alvin’s really got to start checking the books she’s reading more thoroughly. 

“Right,” Alvin says, drawing the word out in uncertain agreement, and that’s it: the conversation is dropped, the collar goes back into the bag, and by the time they meet up with everyone else, the subject is practically an afterthought, save for the leather that Alvin catches a glimpse of everytime Jude moves in a certain way.

-

The collar sits about as snug around Alvin’s throat as he was expecting, but it feels considerably less like it’s choking him than he thought it might.

“What, not going to lock it into place?” Alvin says, when Milla draws back, settling down against the bed. Jude is sitting cross legged next to them, dressed down to just his boxers and an old t-shirt that’s been turned into a sleep shirt, watching them both with something that Alvin can only describe as _fondness_ , crawling across Alvin’s skin.

“I didn’t think I’d need to,” Milla replies, and Alvin wishes he could be distracted by the gentle curves of her body instead of the leather around his neck. Milla tilts her head, all her hair jostling with the motion. “Isn’t this entire exercise about trust? Force shouldn’t have anything to do with it.”

Jude makes a noise that might be a rapidly choked off laugh, raising his hand to cover his mouth and pretend to cough, instead. Alvin shoots him a glare that might be more withering if Alvin wasn’t naked save for a pair of briefs and a collar. 

“So this is about trust?” Alvin says. “Is that what it means?”

Milla tilts her head, considering her words with precision. “I think it is. It’s a promise that I’ll take care of you,” Milla says, “and that you’ll trust me to do so.”

Alvin’s throat goes dry. 

“Is that satisfactory?” Milla asks. Her hands dent the bed where she’s leaning forward, pitched into Alvin’s face, and she’s studying him with that look that always makes him feel more exposed than any amount of nudity ever could.

“It’s been a long time since anyone’s tried to take care of me,” Alvin ventures, cautiously. It’s too much; it’s too vulnerable, and he wants to take it back immediately.

“Well,” Milla says, and reaches up. “I’m happy to do so, you know. You’re very precious to me.”

“Right, your precious humans,” Alvin says, automatically, bracing for an emotional impact that doesn’t quite come. It’s easy if he can take the words and twist them until they don’t matter, push away the real meaning of it. He feels helpless in the tidal wave that’s Milla’s gentle force.

“No,” Milla says, and her hand brushes across Alvin’s cheek, feather light and demanding. Alvin’s eyes go to hers, automatically, and he feels like he can’t even breathe under that gaze. “I care about all of spirit and humankind, but this is just for the two of you. You’re precious to me in a different way. I thought you knew that?”

It feels like a hundred years of tension releasing all at once. Alvin glances at Jude, and he sees only agreement there -- there isn’t judgement, or anger, or jealousy, or any of the things that Alvin knows what to do with and how to handle. Alvin reaches up, presses his hand over Milla’s, and then falls backward, dragging them both down onto the bed until her knees bracket his hips and his head is pushed against Jude’s thigh.

“Yeah,” Alvin says, “I think I knew.”

“We’ll keep showing it,” Jude says, carefully leaning back into the conversation and into Alvin’s personal space. “So you don’t need to worry.”

Alvin’s not sure what he should be worried about, exactly -- he’s never feared being alone before -- but he appreciates the reassurance all the same. He can’t say he deserves it, but that doesn’t seem to matter when Jude presses their lips together and Milla’s fingers splay over his abdomen. 

He’s never made a promise he intended to keep before.

-

Milla leaves again. That’s to be expected: the ruler of spirits can only spend so much time on earth, and Alvin and Jude are both used to her having to leave for long periods. She never tells them how long she’ll be, whether it’s a few weeks or a year, but her visits have been becoming more and more often, and Alvin is grateful.

Other than that, things don’t change as much as Alvin was expecting. Truthfully, he doesn’t know what he was expecting, but good things just don’t _happen_ to him, but two good things keep orbiting no matter how poorly he does at interpersonal relationships. He wears the collar pretty regularly, his scarf tucked securely around it. Jude doesn’t bother to hide it, but Jude’s never let what other people think bother him, and it’s not like anyone is going to say anything about the fashion sense of the lead spyrite researcher.

He lies to Jude out of habit: tells him that he’s doing something inconsequential that he isn’t, and realizes the second that he hangs up the GHS that there wasn’t a single reason to lie and he can’t explain why he did it. He shows up at Jude’s Elympios apartment with take out, instead. 

“I thought you were busy?” Jude says.

Alvin considers his options. He could say that things freed up, or that he bailed, or--

“I lied,” Alvin says, with a smile that doesn’t go very far past his mouth.

Jude looks at him for a long moment, and Alvin braces for the rejection, for some sort of irritation.

“What a dumb thing to lie about,” Jude says, instead, and pulls Alvin in for a kiss.

-

“Hey,” Alvin says, watching the light flicker in through Fennmont’s night sky to play across the apartment. They have too many apartments in too many places, these days, so this one is just a rental, a temporary stop. Alvin’s scarves hang up in the closet, and Jude’s lab coat is strewn across the table, and the litter of books, papers, and invoices makes the entire place feel like home.

“Hm?” Jude says. He’s curled on his side, head on Alvin’s arm, scrolling through his GHS where it’s propped up against Alvin’s side.

“Do you think she’s watching?”

“What? Probably,” Jude says.

“Do you think she’s watching right now?” Alvin asks. He rolls, letting himself roll over onto Jude and tucking a knee neatly in between his thighs.

Jude pauses in his scrolling as the GHS falls, looking up at Alvin with suspicion. He gets it a few seconds later, a flush spreading across his cheeks. “ _Alvin_ , what thel--”

“I’m just saying,” Alvin says, glancing back out at the sky, “it’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

“Why are you like this,” Jude responds, but despite the wry tone of his voice he leans up to meet Alvin’s lips and let his hands drift down Alvin’s bare sides.

Alvin can’t exactly say whether or not Milla was actually watching, but he likes to think she is.

-

Milla is there when Alvin wakes up. She wasn’t there when he went to sleep, so it takes a long moment of processing on his part to figure out exactly what’s going on -- but he’s still in his place, the world hasn’t ended, and when he reads his digital alarm clock it says the same thing several times in a row, so he’s pretty sure he’s not dreaming.

“Hey,” Alvin says. His face has sleep creases from being pressed into Milla’s skirt, and he rubs at them as he sits up.

“Good morning,” Milla offers. She sets down the magazine she was reading -- one of Leia’s new pieces was published, so Alvin bought extra copies to distribute to everyone he knew -- and offers him a smile. “Jude was late for a meeting, so he’s already gone.”

“Has he ever been on time?” Alvin asks, but the question is rhetorical, because Jude’s ability to problem solved is only ever thwarted by his inability to keep track of time, no matter how many alarms he sets. 

“When it counts,” Milla offers, as deliberate as ever. She reaches out, letting her fingers trail over the collar. It’s exposed, given Alvin’s affection for sleeping with as little clothing as possible, and he automatically tilts his neck, exposing more of it for her touch. He reaches up, letting his fingers wrap around hers.

“I’m glad,” Milla says, “that you’re still wearing it.” 

“Yeah,” Alvin says, a little thickly; it’s become almost automatic, these days, to put it on. No one’s commented on it, even on the days where he’s forgotten to tie his scarf right or worn a low-collared outfit. Everyone that matters already knows, he supposes, and none of them are the sort of people to take advantage of weakness, which sounds fake no matter how many times he thinks it.

“You don’t have to,” Milla says. “If it’s uncomfortable. Whether or not you have it on, I still consider you mine.”

“I kinda like the reminder,” Alvin says. Milla smiles, easy and brilliant, like he’s correctly answered a question he was never actually asked.

“I enjoy it, as well,” Milla offers.

-

“This is for you,” Jude says, and offers out a bracelet. It’s a thin silver band, a delicate criss-crossing red and blue lacquer inlay along the edges.

“Oh,” Milla says. “Thank you.” She accepts it automatically, and goes to put it on her wrist.

“Hold on,” Alvin says, “let us do it.” 

Milla blinks. She pauses for a moment, and then offers her wrist out. “I see,” Milla says.

“We thought you might want a reminder, too,” Jude says. He clips it onto Milla’s wrist, and Alvin connects it together, feeling a little self conscious about it.

“And what exactly should it be reminding me of?” Milla asks. There’s nothing in her tone but genuine curiosity, and she draws her wrist back, letting the bracelet rise and fall with her motions. 

“That we’re always here for you, too,” Jude says. 

“You’re saying you want to take care of me?” Milla asks.

Alvin’s hands go behind his head, for lack of better use for them; there’s nowhere better to put them right now, and he doesn’t know what the right words to say are.

“Yeah,” Jude says.

“Is that what it means for you, Alvin?” Milla asks. 

“Uh…” Alvin starts, dropping his arms. Milla pins him with her gaze again, careful and true, and Alvin hesitates. She waits, patiently, and Jude focuses in on him.

“I don’t know what it means,” Alvin says, “but I don’t want to lie about it.”

“Coming from you,” Jude says dryly, “that’s basically a confession of undying love.”

Alvin grabs one of the pillows off the bed and reaches over to gently smother his boyfriend. “Be quiet, kid.”

Jude says something that sounds like it’s meant to be “I’m twenty” but it comes out “hmm whentwhee”, smacking at Alvin’s arm until Alvin finally lets him back up. 

“Yeah,” Alvin says, once Jude has righted himself and taken the pillow protectively for himself. “I guess it means that I-- love you.”

Jude’s grip on the pillow falters, and Milla pauses, rolling the bracelet back and forth on her wrist.

“Then I accept,” Milla says, brightly.

“Took you long enough,” Jude says.

Alvin contemplates smothering him with the pillow again, but he doesn’t need to, because Jude and Milla are both leaning in to press him back against the headboard. Milla is a warm heat against him, and Jude is a soft weight, and Alvin finally understands what it’s like to feel safe.

**Author's Note:**

> all i can think about is tales of xillia in the year 2020 help me ??? talk to me about these wrecks @warsfeils on twitter


End file.
